Seahawks safety Kam Chancellor announces retirement from NFL
By Lee Vowell
Seahawks safety Kam Chancellor appears to have announced his retirement on Sunday. One of the best safeties in Seattle history will no longer play. And that really sucks.
We Seahawks fans saw it coming, of course. Heck, everyone did. Kam Chancellor‘s seeming retirement from professional football is not a surprise. But in all honesty, I was still hoping for more Kam.
Chancellor will probably go on to have a wonderful NFL afterlife. And he should. As he said in his Twitter post, he doesn’t want to walk away, but his neck injury is telling him he needs to. Why wait for the injury to get worse or try to play through it and paralyze him? He shouldn’t. No one should, obviously.
Still, as a fan, Chancellor’s retirement completely is awful. I want him to be healthy and playing for the Seahawks. He needs to be the Enforcer. Earl Thomas and Chancellor need to keep forming the best safety combo in the NFL. And maybe in NFL history.
But he won’t. And like I said, he shouldn’t. A human being needs to worry about their health first and the NFL is not for people who are not fully healthy and probably not even for those who are most of the time.
https://twitter.com/KamChancellor/status/1013556290700836864
The Seahawks don’t save any money from Chancellor’s retirement. And doesn’t this make it worse for 12s? We know Seattle is better with Chancellor on the field and if he isn’t there, Seattle is no better off financially.
The key language in Kam Chancellor's injury guarantee is his ability to pass the preseason physical in the team doctor's sole discretion. Time isn't on Seattle's side because the skill & salary cap guarantees for the $6.8M in 2018 kick in 5 days after 2018 waivers begin (2/10). https://t.co/IkCUY8Pvze
— Joel Corry (@corryjoel) November 28, 2017
Chancellor’s impact
Seattle loses in Chancellor a team leader and teacher. Sure, he missed a bunch of games with different injuries but was good enough to keep the secondary intact even when Richard Sherman and Thomas weren’t playing. Remember the week 10 Arizona Cardinals game in 2017? Chancellor was out there as the last of the legion and kept stopping the Cardinals over and over.
And there’s all the wonderful intimidating Chancellor tackles. This is what he will be remembered for.
I think we all remember this hit by Kam Chancellor (@KamChancellor) against Vernon Davis. Dude was a MONSTER!#Seahawks pic.twitter.com/X3351ucRbN
— Samuel Gold (@SamuelRGold) July 1, 2018
Next: Seahawks roster might be ok even without Chancellor...
As it turns out, week 10 of 2017 was a huge turning point for Seattle’s franchise. This was the week that the Seahawks lost Sherman and Chancellor forever. Sherman will be missed, of course. But Chancellor might be the more beloved player 20 years from now. The Seahawks will miss their strong safety.